Nawlins. The Big Easy. The second sin city?*
What’s to do here? My wife and I arrived here yesterday. We’re staying in the French Quarter and we’re going to be here for a week. Our schedule is fairly open so suggest away!
*I dunno. That’s what a coworker called it.
What kinds of things do you enjoy? What have you done so far? Any specific reason to be in NOLA?
Nothing really. The place is dead, dead, dead even by 7 pm most nights. I personally think the place could take off if they brought in some music, outstanding food, 24 hour partying, culture, history, architecture and whatever else they can stuff into one package but that will never happen.
Is this a serious question? You are sitting right in the middle of a world-famous travel destination and you haven’t noticed anything interesting or notable about the place yet? The whole city is set up for entertainment and tourism like Las Vegas except real. You don’t have to plan much in detail. Just start walking around and do what you see other people doing although it will probably be really hot this time of year. Undress appropriately.
Here are some of the 1,646,678 threads we have done on this subject before.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=459661&highlight=orleans
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=451757&highlight=orleans
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=429339&highlight=orleans
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=405410&highlight=orleans
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=534896&highlight=orleans
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=514247&highlight=orleans
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=511314&highlight=orleans
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=506729&highlight=orleans
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=470936&highlight=orleans
Drat. Lost the first version. We’re here for no reason other than we needed a vacation and chose NOLA. no real obligations. We like food so good resaurant recommendations would be cool. Wife’s pregnant so wandering around bourbon st with a hurricane is probably out. Want to see good museums/jazz/shows if possible. My wife wants to go on a swamp and/or cemetary tour. So any suggestions welcome.
It would suck to be pregnant in New Orleans–most of my favorite times there have involved not much more than wandering around and drinking.
Jazz: Catch a set or two at Preservation Hall. Other than that your best bets are on Frenchman St., just outside the French Quarter in Faubourg Marigny: Snug Harbor, dba, the Spotted Cat.
Restaurants: Cochon, Bayona, Acme Oyster House (looks touristy, but the chargrilled oysters are to die for), Johnny’s Po-Boys (it’s all good, but I’m partial to their roast beef). August is great for a fancy meal out but it’s a little stuffy for my taste–food is outstanding, though.
Tours: we took a late night ghost tour that was awesome. There’s a flashy one where the guides all dress up–it isn’t that one. Ours was led by a retired history professor turned French Quarter drunk who just took us around and told us about creepy things that had happened (or had supposedly happened). We also did a Cocktail Tour that I loved, but I’m a nerd in that department.
Just wander the Quarter, take in the atmosphere, and feel the burn of my jealousy. I’ve been really NOLA-sick lately.
Lol shagnasty. I’m posting on an iPod so it’s not as thourough an op as I’d like. My point wasn’t that we literally couldn’t find anything around here. We’re just looking for “expert” opinions. A separating of the chaff from wheat as it were. DoctorJ thanks for the recomendations.
If you gamble, skip the casino in New Orleans. You’ll get better food (and comps) if you’re willing to drive a couple hours to the ones on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
Food: You really ought to do breakfast at Cafe du Monde at least once. You want beignets, which are sorta like French doughnuts, except they aren’t round and have no hole.
Zoo: New Orleans had a great zoo before Katrina. I dunno if they’ve recovered or not.
Oak Alley: No, not my ancestral home. 
It’s an Antebellum plantation home in the area. Think they filmed part of Gone with the Wind there–the approach to the main house is lined with ginormous live oak trees. It’s out of the city a little ways.
Think there’s a battlefield park for the Battle of New Orleans. Haven’t seen it, but other national battlefield parks have been interesting.
Seconded. I’ve probably said before that I’m not into ‘touristy’ things in New Orleans, but damned if I don’t like Café du Monde. Nothing like sitting there in the morning before it gets too hot, watching the people, listening to a street musician, and feeling a little breeze come off the river, while enjoying a serving of beignets and a cuppa cafe au lait.
And you’ve got to eat a muffaletta. Central Market and Frank’s Restaurant are across the street from Café du Monde. I had a Central Market muffaletta my third trip (?) to New Orleans. I had one from Frank’s my last trip (last June). Both were excellent. Be sure to order it hot. You can get a muffaletta anywhere, but trust me: Frank’s or Central Market have the best (of all the ones I’ve had there).
Checkpoint Charlie’s is a dive bar at Esplanade and Frenchman. Local bands play there, the burgers are good, and you can even do your laundry. Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop on Bourbon Street is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, structure in the Quarter. Nice place to get out of the heat this time of year. But beware: The beer selection is poor and expensive. You’re better off going to Checkpoint Charlie’s or another ‘locals’ bar.
A visit to The Voodoo Museum (on Dumaine) and Marie Laveau’s House of Voodoo are a must, if only to say you’ve been there. Frankly, Marie Laveau’s is akin to any such shop in any city. The Voodoo Museum is slightly more interesting. If you’re into that sort of thing, you should also visit Marie Laveau’s crypt in Saint Louis Cemetery #1.
Anyway, I think Shagnasty covered everything and more with his links than I can here.
I just spent a week in New Orleans a couple of weeks back, and I am already planning my next trip down—Between the music, food, history, architecture and the people of New Orleans themselves, I am hard pressed to find a more enjoyable city to visit, worldwide…
(I feel that I have a pretty good frame of reference to judge from—I have travelled quite extensively over the past several years, spending considerable time in some of the worlds most popular cities)
That said, there are a host of things to choose from in New Orleans, and I would put a good cemetery tour high on the list, as well as the touristy but overall very enjoyable “Haunted New Orleans” walking tour, which is always well done and full of cool little facts about the city and it’s history.
Your dining options are unlimited, and from the seediest corner dive bar, up to the most exclusive, expensive places in the city, New Orleans cuisine is as good as anywhere on Earth, bar none.
A few favorites of mine (the mid-priced range)
Dragos
Acme Oyster House
Lil’ Dizzys
Menas
Johnny’s Po Boys
Camilla Grill
Central Grocery (muffeletta)
I can’t imagine being short of things to do while in New Orleans (hell, just take the free ferry across the Mississippi River to Algiers Point and walk around for an hour) but don’t hesitate to ask a random bartender, waitress, bellman or cab driver for suggestions—Most locals are justifiably proud of their city, and will be glad to give good advice.
Enjoy your visit----Matthew
Oh – Community Coffee.
A lot of places serve Community Coffee. It’s what my friends had in their homes when I visited. I recently ordered eight pounds of it and am getting close to the bottom of the 2-pound bag of French Roast. I’ve got a 2-lb. bag of Café Special at my desk at the office (about halfway through that one), and there are two pounds each of Medium Roast and Dark Roast in my kitchen.
Is it ‘The Best Coffee On The Planet’? No, of course not. But I’ve always found it a pleasant brew.
Also, you could give the Crescent City Brewing Company (on Decatur St.) a shot—a very nice regional menu, and a good selection of house-brewed ales, pilsners and other tasty craft beers, (and of course many non-alcoholic selections for your wife) all only a 2 min. walk from St. Louis Cathedral…
Clover Grill, on Bourbon and Dumaine. Small diner, decent food, reasonably priced. Open 24 hours. I go there at least once per trip. It was used as a location in Benjamin Button.
‘Our chili speaks for itself…sooner or later.’
‘If you are not served in 5 minutes, relax, it may be another 5. This is not New York City.’
‘Everyone brings happiness into this business, some when they come in, others when they leave.’
.
I vaugely remember staggering in there around 4am a couple of weeks ago----Sometimes a cheese and mushroom omelette is the best food in the world…
Man, I could go for a hubcap burger and a side of hashbrowns.
The Aquarium is well worth an afternoon.
I’ll jump on this bandwagon… I’ll be in New Orleans for 4 days/nights in June for a conference. I’ve been there 4 times, but this time I’ll be by myself. I’ll be spending my days at the Convention Center, so if anyone has any good recommendations for bars/restaurants in that area I’d be grateful. Not that I can’t get over to other areas, but I haven’t spent much time in the Garden District/Magazine St. area.
Enderw24----Just one last thing.
I really hate to try and tell anyone what to do with their hard-earned money, but if you are in a position to do so, it sure wouldn’t hurt to leave an extra buck or two for your waitress or cabbie if and when you can.
With the oil spill in the Gulf, I have a feeling that New Orleans tourism is going to be hit hard (again) over the next several years. The good people of New Orleans are going to pay the price for BP’s incessant greed and corporate incompetence, and tourism is the city’s livelihood…
Have a great time!!!
I live in New Orleans (within the city limits, not the suburbs) in an area known as “Uptown.” Get a New Orleans’ snow ball. I prefer Plum Street Snow Balls which is about 2 blocks from my house on the corner of Burdette and Plum Streets. For authentic po-boys where you don’t have to stand in a long line full of tourist (like at Mother’s), I recommend Parasol’s in the Irish Channel. Here’s something really cheap, but fun: take a streetcar ride the whole route from Canal to the end at Claiborne and Carrollton. You’ll get to see all of St. Charles Ave. It’s about $1.25 one way per person. Audubon Park is on the route and you can get off and take the shuttle to the Audubon Zoo, which IS back after Katrina. Downtown, near the French Quarter, is the Aquarium of the Americas and the Insectarium. I’d do the zoo and aquarium, but the Insectarium is a little “meh”.
I last visited New Orleans in the summer of 1999. I don’t like most seafood, I’m a teetotaler, and jazz sets my teeth on edge. So I must have hated the place, right? Wrong!
The Audubon Zoo was my favorite place; I went twice and there was still stuff left to do. I stashed the rental car at a Business District parking garage and rode the St Charles streetcar all along its route. I walked the French Quarter and goggled at the bars, though I didn’t go in. I did go to the Voodoo Museum which was a pleasant surprise - quite interesting and not cheesy as I’d feared. Iced coffee and beignets at Cafe Du Monde, snowballs just about everywhere. One thing I meant to do was go on the Honey Island swamp tour and I regret not finding the time.
My point is, it sounds like the OP already has a good idea of what will be fun, and there are plenty of great suggestions to add from this thread.
My dad loved to reminisce about that place and he hadn’t lived in New Orleans for decades. Wish I’d’a known it was still there. [adds to ‘return visit’ list]
Please go try the fried chicken at Willie Mae’s Scotch House and report back. It’s supposed to be to die for.